Friday, January 21, 2011

Slurping in Vietnam

A visitor to Vietnam speaks of how you can find a place there where you will see more high-end Harley-Davidson motorcycles than anywhere else in the world, and of how condos are being sold there that cost 2 million dollars, and how customized Rolls-Royces and 4 by 4 Porsches are also being bought, though millions in that country are still making do with bicycles or traveling on foot -- and of how, though most Vietnamese start off their days with a 1-dollar bowl of noodle soup, the rich amongst their citizenry can treat themselves to a bowl that costs 35 times as much.

So what was the point of the Vietnam War? Couldn't the same result have been ultimately achieved without all that contention, suffering, and death?

We already knew that on the American side, from the outset so many years ago, there was no real point, and all those lives were simply thrown away. Now, after having suffered losses that were far greater, now it looks as if the Vietnamese are fast falling in danger of having to admit the same.

But the universal hunger to be wealthier than the next guy and to be able to show it quite often prevails over all in the end.

Meanwhile there is still the badly outstanding question of the $35 bowl of noodles, coming from a man who starts off his days in the U.S. with a slice of pound cake and a little later a 25-cents bowl of what my wife maintains is not real Ramen noodle soup at all but just a few pinches of colored salt. What goes into a 35-bucks-a-throw bowl of noodle soup that makes it that much better than a 1-dollar bowl or even a 25-cents bowl?. But the writer either didn't try the noodles or neglected to ask.